Thursday, July 12, 2018

“Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our point of view.”
– Obi-Wan Kenobi –

Who is telling stories about your organization and are those stories based in reality?

The current NATO summit has been dominated by an artificially-generated conflict between the U.S. President and European leaders – with the President’s narrative dominating headlines. Yet Nikolas Gvosdev, professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, has a different view about what’s really occurring within NATO. Gvosdev writes:

“No matter the immediate optics of the Brussels summit, the long-term planning for making the alliance more flexible and capable is under way. A narrative of NATO failure arising out of personality clashes between the president and European leaders, no matter how seductive in terms of headlines, obscures real progress that is being made and weakens confidence in the process of alliance regeneration that started before Trump came into office and will continue when his term is concluded.”
(Read Professor Gvosdev’s full article here).

Gvosdev’s point is that NATO is much stronger than one individual and is already undergoing a strategic transformation. This is a very different reality than the one painted by both the U.S. President and most news stories about the Summit. With this example in hand, the question stands: Who is telling stories about your organization and are those stories based in reality? You may be surprised by the disconnect between reality and the stories that are being told.